I passed Christmas week at the 'Flower of the Wavy Field;' and, in the
society of old and new friends, found nothing of that sameness and
monotony against which so many, myself included, have whilom
declaimed. The truth is that most places breed ennui for an idle
man. Nor is the climate of Madeira well made for sedentary purposes: it
is apter for one who loves to flâner, or, as Victor Hugo has it, errer songeant.
Having once described Funchal at some length, I see no reason to repeat
the dose; and yet, as Miss Ellen M. Taylor's book shows,
the subject, though old and well-worn, can still bear a successor to the
excellent White and Johnson handbook.
As early as 1827 'The Rambler in Madeira' (Mr. Lyall) proclaimed the
theme utterly threadbare, in consequence of 'every traveller opening
his quarto (?) with a short notice of it;' and he proceeded at once to
indite a fair-sized octavo. Humboldt said something of the same sort in
his 'Personal Narrative,' and forthwith wrote the worst description of
the capital and the 'Pike' of Tenerife that any traveller has ever
written of any place. He confesses to having kept a meagre diary, not
intending to publish a mere book of travels, and drew his picture
probably from recollection and diminutive note-books.
I found Funchal open-hearted and open-handed as ever; and the pleasure
of my stay was marred only by two considerations, both purely
personal. Elysian fields and green countries do not agree with all
temperaments. Many men are perfectly and causelessly miserable in the
damp heats of Western India and the Brazil. We must in their case simply
reverse the Wordsworthian dictum,
Not melancholy--no, for it is green.
They are perfectly happy in the Arabian desert, and even in Tenerife, where others feel as if living perpetually on the verge of high fever.
To this 'little misery' were added the displeasures of memory. Our last
long visit was in 1863, when the Conde de Farrobo ruled the land, and
when the late Lord Brownlow kept open house at the beautiful Vigia. I
need hardly say that we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves: the impressions of
that good old time were deep and durable.
Amongst other things, Governor Farrobo indulged his fair friends with a
display of the old jogo de canas, or running at the ring. The
Praça Academica had been rigged out to serve as a tilting-yard, with a
central alley of palisading and two 'stands,' grand and little. The
purpose was charitable, and the performers were circus-horses, mounted
by professionals and amateurs, who thus 'renowned it' before the public
and their damas. The circlet, hanging to a line, equalled the
diameter of a small boy's hat; and when the 'knight' succeeded in
bearing it off upon his pole, he rode up to be decorated by the hands of
a very charming person with a ribbon-baudrière of Bath dimensions
and rainbow colours. Prizes were banal as medals after a modern war, and
perhaps for the same purpose--to prevent unchristian envy, hatred, and
malice. Almost any trooper in an Anglo-Indian cavalry regiment would
have done better; but then he would have couched his bamboo spear
properly and would have put out his horse to speed--an idea which seemed
to elude the Madeiran mind. The fête ended with a surprise less
expensive than that with which the Parisian restaurant astonishes the
travelling Britisher. A paper chandelier was suspended between two
posts, of course to be knocked down, when out sprang an angry
hunch-backed dwarf, who abused and fiercely struck at all straight backs
within reach.
Madeira is celebrated for excursions, which, however, are enjoyable only
in finest weather. Their grand drawback is inordinate expense; you may
visit the whole seaboard of Morocco, and run to Tenerife and return for
the sum spent in a week of Madeiran travel. The following tour to the
north of the island was marked out for us by the late Mr. Bewick; his
readiness to oblige, his extensive local knowledge, and his high
scientific attainments caused his loss to be long felt in the Isle of
Wood. 'You make on the first day Santa Anna, on the opposite coast, a
six to eight hours' stage by horse or hammock, passing through the grand
scenery of the valleys Metade, Meiometade, and Ribeiro Frio.